riffs
by hercule
Summary: It doesn't take a novel to see how far they've come. (Chapters are stand-alone.)
1. and if I did, what then?

and if I did, what then?

(season two)

Through the door and the thick air come the sounds of rattling pots, a sink running, and something sizzling on the stove. She steps out of the tepid water, wraps herself in a towel and starts the bath draining, and its intermittent gurgles drown out the domestic soundtrack. A sweep of her hand against the mirror that's painted with condensation and enough is revealed to make her purse her lips.

Cheekbones still traced in ash. Strands of charred hair pasted against her neck. Eyes that face fire every time she blinks. She takes a rattling breath, remembering. But of course there's more to remember than her life up in flames. There's blue eyes that twinkle and a smile that can spell disaster and fingers that can wrap around her whole waist, lift her up, press her forward out of the fire and into the night.

She can't hold back the smile, can only let it transform her face, warm her dripping body, and reflect back at her in the mirror, not taunting but suggesting, intimating, that this, him and her, is already, inevitably more. Not for the first time that she's thought of his eyes and his lips and his dexterous hands and in them, his heart, the thought comes unbidden.

And if I did, what then?


	2. corner pocket

corner pocket

(season three)

Off the street, down some stairs, in a haze of blue notes and intoxication, she sits at the bar with a shot glass cradled between her palms and watches not so surreptitiously as the bartender mixes another woman's drink. Chilled glass, buttershots, Irish cream, a roguish smile, and before she can question the knotted feeling that's growing in her stomach he's back before her, looming. She considers him, and tests her lip with her teeth.

"Let's play a game," she says, knowing her voice will get lost in the silvery piano riffs, that he'll have to lean in close to hear her invitation. And that he will.

"Yes," he says without a beat.

"Aren't you going to ask what it is?"

He gives her a wicked smile, lips thinned, teeth bared, eyes flashing in the low light, and for a second she wonders if he's thinking of another kind of game, if he's already writing the scene in his head. Whispers in the dark. Fingers searching for skin. A game of touch me if you dare.

She swallows and pushes away her glass. "It's going to take some balls."

"I have plenty of balls, Beckett," he says, relishing the hard consonants.

Her tongue slips out to wet her lips. "We'll also need a long, hard stick."

"Check."

"And if you're no good at this, Castle, I might have to teach you how to sink it in one stroke."

"Trust me," he says, "I'm good."

She smirks. "Then come on, let's play some pool."


	3. giant steps

giant steps

(season one)

After she spins away, hips swinging, he watches her go with his mouth open and his mind suspended halfway between disappointment and expectation. There were so many reasons to think she'd say yes: her hands flung against his chest, her stunned eyes at a simple kiss on the cheek, the electric current of frustration and want that crackled between them across every table, within every glare.

If there were reasons to think she'd say no he hadn't bothered to consider them. He hadn't heard that word from a woman in a while. But there was something disturbingly satisfying about it coming from this one, because in that moment in the alley watching her silhouette retreat into the blaze of emergency lights he knew two things: That he had a new character. And that he wasn't finished with Kate Beckett, even though their steps wouldn't be giant, maybe a coffee here and flowers there, flirting and annoying and supporting and just being there for whenever that armor came off, that with her swordplay and her stories and her soul she could and would make him dance.


	4. how to see the sunrise

how to see the sunrise

(season four)

Wake up flat on your stomach with your face crushed into a pillow and your arms spread wide like you were dreaming of taking flight to a phone call. Paw blindly around until you can squint into the harsh light of the screen to see that it's her calling you at four thirty three in the morning. Groan hello, guess the dead aren't sleeping easy, but I was. Run a hand through your hair at her one-note laugh. Say yes, meet you there, of course it's not too early.

Douse your face in water at the sink. Frown at the dark raised circles under your eyes. Shrug.

Pull on socks, pants, shirt, shoes, jacket, your phone into one pocket, your wallet into another and you're two steps out the door before you realize that shit, the coffee shop with her favorite blend won't be open this early, will it? and you don't want to take any chances, so you go back inside to the kitchen to the coffee grinder and make her coffee, just in case.

Find 57th Street crowded with cops. Balance your offering as you dodge them, looking for the hair and listening for the heels. Feel a tap on your shoulder. Turn around to find her with her hair down in waves and her coat buttoned up to her chin. Hand her the unfamiliar cup with a sheepish smile. Wait for her to glance at it, confused, then give in to need, take a sip, close her eyes and open them, brighter. Imagine she moaned in satisfaction.

Hear her tease, sure it isn't too early for you, Castle?

Nod to where the sides of the street converge into a single point and the buildings look like they're leaning in to touch each other, where the red sun crests, throwing oranges and pinks and yellows into the far corners of the sky. Watch her watch it rise. Tell her it's worth it every time.


	5. tale of the fingers

tale of the fingers

(season five)

Morning. Crime scene.

If he hadn't been interrupted. If he'd never started in the first place. If he hadn't insisted on waking her up leisurely, teasing small sounds out of her minute by euphoric minute as she'd squirmed against the sheets, like he knew without a doubt that he had their whole lives to touch her, to make her shudder. Then maybe she wouldn't still feel the ghosts of his fingers on her skin and the sight of him in the car linking his hands in his lap or tapping a rhythm on the door frame or flexing his arms back in a long cat stretch wouldn't make her shut her eyes and swallow.

Afternoon. Bullpen.

He knew. Of course he did. He could read the flutters of her eyelashes and the curl of her lips. He could translate every blink. And what could she do but flutter and curl and blink away when he ran his hand down the edge of her desk to reach for a file and she could feel the caress on her hip, when he brought her coffee in a cup so small it disappeared in his grasp and she could feel his palm cupping her breast, when he rubbed the back of his neck and sighed and met her gaze with laughing blue eyes and she could feel the slow burning strokes from her chest to her thighs.

Evening. Home.

"Eager much?" he says with a grin.

"Shut up and touch me," she replies.


	6. stardust

happy father's day!

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stardust

(season three)

At the bottom of a path that climbs up in steady switchbacks to a smooth white dome, he stops.

The sky arches above them like a great cathedral and he cranes his neck back to look at the glow of the city that dusts up into the darkness, then higher to the rare points of light and the vast emptiness in between, and while he stands there slack-jawed at everything and nothing and imagining what could be and what most likely is he hears her come up beside him, breathing softly. She brushes against him in silent question.

"You won't even consider the possibility?"

"That aliens killed our vic?" she says. "No."

"I'll concede that there's a possibility, just a possibility, Beckett, that this was not an intergalactic hit. But I actually meant, won't you even consider that somewhere out there are living things, things that might find us before we find them, that we're-" he pauses dramatically "-_not_ _alone_."

There's no rapid-fire sarcastic response, so he turns and squints to see her face. Eyes narrowed into slits. Brows dipped into a v. Lips pursed and cheeks sucked into craters. Around them are strange wild shadows, rustles of nightlife and the distant hum of the city that never sleeps. And he smiles at her silence.

He watches her drop her head back to glare at the universe.

"I don't know," she says finally, quietly, pulling her gaze back down not quite to his eyes. "Every moment we're hurtling through space, clinging to this spinning little rock and believing whatever we want to believe, because we don't want to admit that we don't know everything."

"So you believe in aliens!" he crows.

"I believe in the possibility of aliens," she says firmly. "But I don't believe they came all the way to Earth to knock off one astrophysicist."

"Is this victory? This tastes like victory."

She pushes past him up the path, grumbling about annoying writers who should look up the definition of victory and then shove it, but he's already following her, this sweeping feeling of hope and amusement and admiration spurring his feet faster on the gravel below and when he catches up to her, sees her slow to pull her hair back from her eyes and then charge ahead again, he can't help himself.

"What else do you believe in?" he asks.

"You'll just have to find out."


	7. devil and the flesh

devil and the flesh

(season three)

Inside. Heart pounding. She falls back and her shoulder blades rap hard against the door. Eyes closed. Short breaths. It's over, the case for now and the danger for now and all of it is over for now. Light on. Shiver as the bulbs gain strength, flushing the couch low table scattered magazines kitchen stools stairway stacks of books and it's too damn still in here, too serene and silent and this is always what happens after death knocks and says hello, but it's not for you.

Ryan's face was pale and sweaty, no, not sweaty but wet, drenched like his hair as he knelt against the basin of ice water and Javi's forehead was creased, muscles bulging in his neck as he tried to get away, to do something, but what could he do? and there were the men with lean cold faces and they were laughing and that was it, shoot, lunge away, shoot again and then a pause reload decide to look and see not a gun barrel but a tangle of limbs and hear not bullets piercing flesh but ringing off of iron above and realize that there was one person unaccounted for in this nightmare scenario who should have been following, should have been far away, but whose knuckles were bloodied and bruised and whose eyes were wide and scared and then it was over.

Except it wasn't.

She could put on a semblance of ease: soft smile, gentle tease, throaty acknowledgement. And in the back of an ambulance with the door hanging open and his feet nudging hers she did. Adjusted his bandage. Brushed her fingers across his skin. Met his eyes and saw in them even more than she'd expected. Later, much later, everyone was sent home. She can deal with Lockwood tomorrow. Or today. Not now.

It's two in the morning and she's still running high.

Drag the punching bag out of the closet.

One, two, stinging fists.

Contort her body until her muscles burn.

She stops and gasps and lies on her back on the floor and no pain, no threat, not even the smothering silence of her home can make her forget the feel of his hands on her face side waist, his lips slanting over hers, his nose pressed into her cheek, his chest, his neck, his hair, his tongue, his eyes.


	8. locomotion

thank you for reading!

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locomotion

(early season four)

He dries his hands on his pants, pastes on a light smile, readies himself in her hallway after the doorman recognized him, recognized the worry lines around his eyes, the set of his jaw, and let him this far in, but only this far.

No answer.

That bright and terrible May day is still branded across every thought of her, every fear. You'd think he'd be used to the thought of losing her by now, after a whole summer spent remembering everything they've been through together, apart. It's only made him more aware, deep ache in his chest aware, of how he can't imagine coffee, stake-outs, Chinese food, writing, laughing, kissing, anything without her.

Still no answer as he waits outside her door, frowning, so he leans back against the wall, pulls his phone out, calls, and hears a ring, then another, and another, but it's too loud, brash, the silly ringtone he added when he swiped her phone three days ago. He stands up straight.

"Hey," he says when she appears from around the corner in a thin t-shirt and shorts.

She leans over, hands on her knees, breathing hard, her skin glistening. "Hey, Castle."

"Should you really be..." he stops at her sudden glare. "Good run?"

"Good enough." She bends forward again, fingers to her toes, winces. He pretends not to notice. "So?"

"I thought you'd want to see this," he says, pulling a folded magazine from the back of his pants. "It's about you - I mean, Nikki - anyway, it's a special issue, there's a feature inside of the best heroines of the decade. Nikki has a two-page spread with book covers, quotes, and they call her brave, strong, intelligent. They also call her extraordinary," he pauses, smiles, "but they got that from me."

For a moment she stays folded over in front of him, probably rearranging her face from to pleased to embarrassed to disapproving to only mildly pleased, because that's all that's left when she pulls up to face him again and sticks out a sweaty hand in reply.

He watches her skim through the magazine, watches her neck muscles tighten, relax. When she flips it closed again, stares at the cover, then looks back at him, he thinks he spots a smile hovering at the corners of her lips.

"Thanks," she says.

"Of course."

She looks down at herself and the smile disappears. "I'd let you come in, but..."

"But you want to take a shower. I understand."

Key into lock, door swung wide, a glance back at him. "Thanks, Castle."

He nods.

This is how they'll move forward again.


End file.
